Palm Desert Mobile Home Leveling California's mobile home releveling rules, for Coachella Valley owners
In California, releveling a mobile home is not a casual repair. Health and Safety Code 18613 treats altering, modifying or replacing a home’s load-bearing supports or stabilizing devices as a reinstallation, and a reinstallation needs a permit. The contractor pulls the permit and must show a valid licence, unless the owner is doing the work and pulls it instead. The licence class is the CSLB C-47 General Manufactured Housing Contractor. Ask anyone who is about to work under your home for their licence number, then check it.
This page sets out what the rules say, so you know what to ask.
The licence: C-47
The Contractors State License Board’s C-47 classification covers installing, altering and repairing mobile homes and manufactured homes, including their foundations. HCD, the state housing department, says any contractor that installs one needs a C-47. To check a licence, enter the number on CSLB’s Check a License page, or call CSLB at 800-321-2752. A licence that is current, in the C-47 class and in the name on your quote is what you are looking for.
The small-job exemption, and why it does not apply
California lets unlicensed people do minor work under $1,000 (the figure since January 1, 2026). That exemption has two limits that matter here. It never covers work that needs a building permit, and it never covers anyone who advertises the work or has a crew. A relevel that changes supports is a reinstallation that needs a permit, so the exemption does not reach it. If you see an older figure quoted online, it is out of date.
Who issues the permit
That depends on where the home sits.
- Inside a mobile home park, HCD is the enforcement agency unless the city or the county has taken that role over. Cathedral City, Indio and Rancho Mirage building departments, and the County of Riverside Department of Environmental Health, appear on HCD’s list of local enforcement agencies. HCD’s Southern Area Office is at 3737 Main St, Suite 400, Riverside, (800) 952-8356.
- Outside a park, the city’s building department or Riverside County Building and Safety issues permits.
Thousand Palms, Desert Edge, Sky Valley and Bermuda Dunes are unincorporated Riverside County, not parts of any city, so a home on private land there falls to the county. If you are not sure which agency covers your park, ask the park office and the agency before work starts.
What Title 25 asks of the work
Title 25 of the California Code of Regulations sets the installation standards. The points that come up most on a relevel:
- Footings sit level on firm, undisturbed soil or compacted fill.
- The load on the soil may not exceed 1,500 pounds per square foot unless higher values are approved.
- Piers are no taller than 36 inches, and if more than a quarter of the home is 3 feet or more off the ground, the home needs a foundation system.
- Piers other than concrete block piers carry a label of approval.
- Homes built since October 7, 1973 are installed to the manufacturer’s installation manual, which is where the level tolerance comes from.
- Skirting goes back on only after the underfloor work is approved, and the home is not to be occupied before inspection.
Older set-ups
An installation that met the rules in force when it was done can stay in use unless it is found substandard. Once the supports are changed, today’s Title 25 rules apply to the work. And no local agency can force a home in a park onto a permanent foundation.
Paperwork people mix up
HCD 433A is recorded only when a home becomes real property on a permanent foundation. It is a title and foundation document. A pier-set home in a park gets an Installation Acceptance (HCD 513B) instead. Neither one is an earthquake bracing permit. Bracing has its own permit, covered on our earthquake bracing page.
What we ask you to do
Before anyone lifts your home, ask four things: the CSLB licence number and class, who is pulling the permit, which agency is issuing it, and whether the park has been told. Our pricing page lists the same questions next to our typical ranges, and the leveling service page explains how the job itself goes. If a past job skipped these steps, read leveling done wrong.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a relevel really a reinstallation?
Under Health and Safety Code 18613(a)(2), the words located, installed and reinstalled include altering, modifying or replacing a home's stabilizing devices, load-bearing supports, or both. Releveling usually means changing supports, so California treats it as reinstalling the home, and a reinstallation needs a permit.
Who pulls the permit?
The statute says the contractor engaged to do the work obtains the permit and must display a valid contractor's licence when applying. The exception is an owner doing the work, who pulls the permit themselves.
Can a handyman do it under the small-job exemption?
California's minor-work exemption covers jobs under $1,000, as of January 1, 2026. It never covers work that needs a building permit, and it does not apply to anyone who advertises or employs another person. A reinstallation needs a permit, so the exemption does not reach it.
What happens if an install fails inspection and is not fixed?
Health and Safety Code 18614 says that if a contractor's installation fails the enforcement agency's inspection and the contractor does not make the corrections, the agency notifies the registrar of contractors at CSLB.